Jubilee executes tailings agreement

17th March 2017 By: Natasha Odendaal - Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Dual-listed Jubilee Platinum has secured access to 1.25-million tonnes of new platinum-bearing surface material at an estimated grade of 2.7 g/t platinum, palladium, rhodium and gold (4E) platinum-group metals (PGMs).

The execution of a framework and processing of tailings agreement with PlatCro will allow for the acquisition of the 4E PGMs contained in the existing surface material, in addition to future material at PlatCro’s operations, which is within trucking distance of Jubilee’s Hernic plant.

“Jubilee is targeting a processing rate of 25 000 t/m to complement our platinum production by a further 14 000 oz of PGMs a year. This projects a total production target of about 50 000 oz of PGMs a year for Jubilee from all its surface tailings and third-party ore projects,” said Jubilee CEO Leon Coetzer in an update on Friday.

Under the agreement, Jubilee will acquire PlatCro’s existing surface material for a total consideration of £3.13/t of the surface material remaining following PlatCro’s recovery of chromite.

“About 79% of the surface material is estimated to remain following chromite removal, which equates to a 4E PGM acquisition value of £3-million,” he added.

Jubilee aims to process the material in the short-term and use the cash flow from these operations to further advance its production ambitions and aggressively pursue further similar opportunities.

“Jubilee will conclude its option study on the processing of the material post-chromite removal over the next few months to determine whether to process the material through our existing Hernic plant or to fast-track the construction of a dedicated platinum processing plant,” Coetzer noted.

Meanwhile, Jubilee secured finance through an equity placing to fund the ore acquisition, ramp up production at Hernic and increase production levels at the Dilokong chrome mine.

The company successfully completed a placing of 66-million new ordinary shares of 1p apiece at a price of 5p a share to raise about £3.3-million.